Motorola's A1600 MING 2 surfaces

from Engadget by Darren Murph

What's that, you say? Reportedly, that picture you see above is the Motorola A1600, which could be the long-awaited successor to the A1200 MING. Granted, we've no proof to go along with it, but the design sure fits the mold. According to Chinese-based eNet, this bugger will sport quad-band GSM connectivity, a 3.2-megapixel camera (with autofocus), WiFi, assisted-GPS, a couple of built-in games, a "talking dictionary" and a Linux-based OS. Interestingly enough, that last tidbit certainly conflicts with other reports we've heard, but we suppose time will tell (look for a February launch) what system really ends up running the MING 2 show. [Via UnwiredView]

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iPhone gets video recording capabilities

from Engadget by Joshua Topolsky

Thanks to another set of ambitious iPhone hackers, we've officially got video on Apple's wonder-device (that somehow omitted video to begin with). It's not much right now, but if you want, you can see your phone recording five succulent seconds of real-deal video at around 15 FPS. The developers say this is just a proof of concept, and they've been able to get up to 45 FPS on the device -- so hopefully we can expect a more robust version soon (like, say, one that lets you save the recording). Check the video after the break to see the gorgeous work in action.

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ATI demonstrates hybrid-chip CrossFire graphics tech

from Engadget by Nilay Patel

We've already seen laptops like Sony's Vaio SZ include integrated graphics alongside much more powerful (and power-hungry) dedicated chips, but AMD's looking to make such setups all the more commonplace with new chips capable of hybrid CrossFire. AMD recently demoed the tech to PC Perspective, showing off a 2.2GHz Phenom machine with both unreleased RS780 integrated graphics and a RV620-based card labeled HD Radeon 3450. Running games like Call of Duty 4 and Unreal Tournament 3, frame rates jumped from 30-35fps to around 55fps when hybrid mode was enabled. That's pretty respectable, although the system is limited to speedups of the slowest chip times two, so bigger gains are probably not in the offing. However, there can still be benefits to using chips of drastically different horsepower: the integrated chips can power down the heavy hitter to save power when not needed, and totally switch over when required. That's a pretty solid compromise, we think -- and with AMD aiming for the initial batch of hybrid CrossFire-capable cards to be priced around $50, it looks like we'll be seeing these setups a lot when AMD starts shipping these early next year.

 

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Homer's iViewer: the wireless TV transmitter

from Engadget by Darren Murph

Homer Technology's iViewer is based on a fairly simple concept, and while we're still curious as to what wireless protocol it's utilizing to handle its duties, it can reportedly beam content from just about anything to your TV sans cabling. More formally known as the HTM 9000, this thing features four separate channels / status LEDs, a trio of composite video inputs and an embedded antenna, which is apparently utilized to pass along video / images from your PMP / camcorder / etc. to the family room TV. Granted, we're always a bit skeptical when the nitty-gritty technical details are casually omitted from any easily retrievable documentation, but if this thing does what it promises at just $42.99, we'd say it's pretty worthwhile.

[Via ChipChick]

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ITRI showcases a 10.4-inch flexible color LCD

from Engadget by Nilay Patel

Hot on the heels of that flexible color e-ink display we saw a couple days back, here comes a flexible 10.4-inch LCD display that's less then 10mm thick. The display is being developed by Taiwan's Industrial Technology Research Institute (ITRI), and features two plastic substrate elements instead of a traditional glass one. ITRI says the display can reproduce 57 percent of the NTSC color gamut, but there's no word on when we might ever see these in production.

[Via TG Daily]

 

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